


Regolith

by Valorem



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valorem/pseuds/Valorem
Summary: Loving Xiao Zhan is like loving the Sun
Relationships: Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean, Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean/Xiao Zhan | Sean
Comments: 21
Kudos: 51
Collections: BJYX Remix Exchange 2020





	Regolith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinkywrists](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkywrists/gifts).



> For the most lovely Kinkywrists and her gorgeous fic - [Solar Flare.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26381203)
> 
> Also - Lucy, one day Ill write you a fic of the kind you deserve. However, that day is not today. I am sorry for this.

Loving Xiao Zhan is like loving the sun.

Like the slips of gold-drenched leaves sifting in the woods, or of gentle eyes bearing the weight of solar systems within their depths.

It’s like there is a stasis - like Xiao Zhan is a phenomenon, too big and too difficult to quantify, too majestic - too bright to look at directly.

Maybe that's why Xiao Zhan almost seemed more palatable through at least a thin film of separation, as if distinction could help with the overdose, while Xiao Zhan - through the various roles he played and adopted into himself, folding Wei Wuxian or Zhang Xiaofan or Tang San into the crannies of his skin so he could graft himself around them with so much love and adoration that Yibo nearly vibrates out of his skin, seems only too happy to oblige.

He is the moon, reflecting off of Xiao Zhan’s eyes - the unfeeling sculpted beauty everybody desired and longed for, but all the same, he’s always been caught - just like this, between two mirrors of forces much greater than he is - longing for the rare moments when sun and moon meet, so he may sneak a peek and believe that even his ice might find a reason to melt.

Xiao Zhan is heated to the touch, his body burns fever-bright like he’s been scorched and crucified and made to walk a trial through charcoal. He’s the son of fire, the Phoenix given flesh, a shard of solar power the universe gravitated around. The warmth in Yibo’s heart feels like it’s searing through his ribs in an attempt to get closer to Xiao Zhan, feels like if Yibo longed any more, it’d flay off his skin, until he’d be nothing but a bag of bone and sinew with a beating heart as a compass, turned eastward - waiting, waiting, waiting for the sun to rise again. (But wasn’t that what the sun did? Watching the rise and fall of peoples and empires and loves lost and planets tearing apart, while it waited, slow in its wrath, burning in a steady flame, and even as it compounded and destroyed - no one could help but be drawn to it, like the foolish gravity tethering their feet to the ground was dragging them toward their own extinction. Xiao Zhan was _that_ sun, and only occasionally was he kinder.)

Yibo on the other hand, has never been for overt expressionism. Even Seungyoun, (who probably knew Yibo better than just about anyone,) had called him a little too quiet, more than once, and that had been okay - between them, silence had been okay because Seungyoun could breathe words into Yibo’s silences and hold him like a bright, pulsing star orbiting around Yibo’s little lowly moon.

But Xiao Zhan… was different. He scorches his way into Yibo’s silences like he belongs, like Yibo’s privacy is an insult to his person and squats in the vast expanse of the void between them, gravity like a leash in his capable hands, his heat a heady collar around Yibo’s throat as Yibo went begging on his knees, not quite pleading for mercy, but close, his lips moving involuntarily - childhood woes and loneliness too deep to ever cauterize pouring out of his mouth like the sacrament of all the prayers he’d never said as a child.

That was..the gap between them, why he and Xiao Zhan would never meet on the same page, not in a million years, for love didn’t always mean compatibility, as much as people could wish otherwise. Besides, the loneliness of the moon was its only allure, beauty far less captivating when the dream shattered, once you got a closer look.

Nobody would dare to desire the sun. Nobody but Yibo, at least, but he’s always reached too far, even as a child, reached for water to beat through his cracked up surface, held the craters of his beaten skin open, so people might hurt him more _so people might fill them up,_ but it’s not the far beauty of Saturn’s rings that can fill the craters of Yibo’s meaningless existence, nor is it the bright blot of the distant Mars, a home when Yibo had lost everything else, for all its proximity fails at filling.

Xiao Zhan however, unlike Yibo’s past and numerous traumatic failures, gives more than he takes, feeding into all of Yibo’s open spaces until he beat in a pulse to the song of the sun, stories of little boys and childhood dreams the only words he can force out of his mouth, the core of Yibo’s being flowing like a gentle stream down rocks and meadows to ripple in the face of Xiao Zhan’s smile, the dip of his lips, and the curve of his cheekbone, stardust in his eye lashes as they sweep down beautifully, a godly king even at his lowest.

Xiao Zhan is a sanctuary as much as he is a distant friend. Yibo feels brave enough to demand his attention, he blooms as Xiao Zhan cradles a hand to his cheek, thumb resting under his eye in casual possession (and wasn’t that their original story too? The moon had once had something, maybe it still would, if it was not in a collision course with a planet it was fated to orbit, and the sun would watch then, as the Moon and Earth collapsed into each other and continue to pulse benevolently, perhaps sparring an angry pulse or five to the moon his lover that he held so dear.)

When Xiao Zhan breathes, it's like there is life to the world, light spilling into the hollows of his bones. Xiao Zhan would never hurt him, _could_ never hurt him (the sun was too distant to ever touch the moon even with the tips of its regal absent fingers - a small satellite to a little blue planet could only be _so_ significant in the grand scheme of things) he cradles Yibo’s cheek, pouring molten gold into his skin, and while Yibo feels like he’s being burnt up from the inside, he’s still almost dying with gratitude for every tiny scrap of affection he can steal.

“There could be odes sung to the beauty of the moon, but none would do you justice.” Xiao Zhan’s voice is soft as cotton clouds and blue skies; he pushes Yibo’s hair off his forehead and presses his lips to his skin, scorching a new mark into his skin. Yibo leans into him.

“But you would.” He says softly. He’s not as poetic as Xiao Zhan. In the whole drama between spatial bodies - The moon had never been accused of being anything more than a moderately cheerful hunk of rock but Yibo did know his job, he knew to beautify even the darkest nights by dancing through the sky, one lonely star lighting the way at a time.

“You could honour me. By never forgetting.” he says like it matters.

Xiao Zhan huffs out a laugh. “You are not someone easily forgotten.” He admits easily, “and I’m not heading far away, just Japan.”

The country of the Rising Sun, Yibo remembers. Its oddly poetic, but Xiao Zhan had always been like that. He pulls out of the hug to look up at his Gege’s beautiful soft eyes, “do not forget me.” He begs again.

Xiao Zhan’s smile turns even gentler, he flicks the tip of Yibo’s nose. “I could never” he promises solemnly. “You should promise to not fall for anyone else while I’m gone, either. All long for your attentions”

Yibo snorts. “Not likely” he promises; wondering for the millionth time if Xiao Zhan confuses their conflicting identities; however, Yibo had no choice but to wait all the same, as similar as that made Yibo to _Him_ , hovering in space for so long as it took the world to keep them apart, and when the world exhausted itself of all its woes, he would run back - to hopefully where Xiao Zhan was waiting for him _as_ Xiao Zhan, whatever the hell that meant.

In the end, Yibo struggles to part, clings when Xiao Zhan squeezes his fingers in a final farewell, but an eclipse could last only so long - and Xiao Zhan’s hand brushing over Yibo forehead like a blessing, is as final as any goodbye could ever hope to be.

He heads away into the distance, hair glinting, eyes sparkling, a jaunt to his step.

Yibo slides his gaze away to look at the empty sky; and breathes an exhausted ode to love.

**Author's Note:**

> if you're here, you're braver than the Zebra from Madagascar.


End file.
